Sub menu

Week-long Welcomings from Moosylvania: Feb. 25th through Mar. 3rd

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).

The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.

So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?

…

NOTE: The comments page will now split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and use the link.

Better Idea: Spend your spring break in Puerto Rico, it's a beautiful place with amazing people. They could really use the economic support that the government has failed to provide. #SpringBreak2018#SBinPurtoRico#itsspelled PUERTO RICO

My Sunday morning post at Orange continues Black History Month – Puerto Rico with the story of Pura Belpré – Afro-Latina educator, storyteller, author, and the first Puerto Rican librarian in NY – for whom the Pura Belpré Award is named – for the best children’s books focused on the Latino cultural experience

I saw that David Hogg tweet about Puerto Rico but I was hesitant to retweet it – I don’t know if the island is ready for an influx of tourists yet! Some smart airline – maybe United and Delta who lost a lot of mojo waiting so long to sever ties with the NRA – should offer cheap fares to Puerto Rico for spring break. Regardless, it was nice to see that the young kids are tapped into current events and know that Puerto Rico has been treated badly by the Trump administration. The damage Bernie Sanders did to the Democratic Party – turning young people away from it to pump up his own “revolution” – may be undone by the GenZ’ers who seem smart about how to use political power; you find a political party that has a platform that supports your issues and you help it win. Sanders is on the wrong side of so many issues – gun control, social justice, women’s issues – it is difficult to see a path forward for him. These kids won’t stay home and allow a Trump to win just because they did not get free college.

Anyway, I am enjoying the Parkland kids complete lack of fear of the NRA and right-wing media. It is refreshing. I am glad they are on our side.

Good misty, moisty, Sunday morning, Moosekind! It’s another Brigadoon-like day here to start. I took some photos from the front and back of Barky Manor. Hard to believe we have only two and a half weeks left here, after 41 and a half years! Anyway, current temp. is 46 F. in NoVa, going up to 64 F. later.

I am loving these kids! However, I don’t know how to follow them on Twitter. I would want to follow them from my political Twitter account, which I can access only through my phone. The Mac and iPad have the Goddessfiction account that I use for tweets about writing.

Yesterday while on Twitter for a bit I gather that Randy Bryce, who is the Democrat running for Paul Ryan’s seat, said something to the effect that the woman candidate, Cindy (can’t remember her last name) should shut up and get out of the way so as not to dilute his (Democratic) support. If true, outrageous! That makes me want to support her if I ever find myself with extra bucks. Entitled men drive me bonkers!

Got to get dressed. This morning we are taking Miss Pink Cheeks and Mr. Preschooler out for breakfast. It’s probably the last time we’ll take them out for breakfast before we move.

It is true and the mustache guy also won’t debate her. He is a product of the lefty blogosphere, pumped up on social media, drunk on celebrity and berner love, and running a national campaign when he needs to be running a local campaign. Cathy Myers is his opponent and she is a twice elected school board member, a teacher, and someone who understands what constituent advocacy means as well as how to win elections. She is a good fit for the district, in my mind.

CD-01 is the district that runs along the bottom of Wisconsin and includes Janesville, Beloit, Kenosha, and Racine, old rustbelt cities that were built on the auto industry and heavy manufacturing and were devastated by the Great Recesssion. It used to be reliably Democratic until the Republicans began running on god, guns and gays and then it slipped away as the residents voted against economic issues. My first political contribution was via Emily’s List to a candidate in CD-01 in 1998, Lydia Spottswood, who was running in a seat left open when the incumbent Republican decided to run for Senate (he lost to Russ Feingold). He was only there because the Democrat who had been in that seat for 22 years, Les Aspin, was tapped as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary and the seat was ripe for the taking when the Republicans launched their Contract on America. Anyway, Lydia lost to Paul Ryan. In 2011, the Wisconsin legislature gerrymandered new district boundaries for Ryan that grabbed parts of blood-red Waukesha County from Jim Sensenbrenner; they knew that Ryan would start having problems because of his contempt for working people, his willingness to prop up the racists in his party, and his attacks on the social safety net especially Medicare and Social Security.

If you want to follow Cathy Myers, her Twitter account is here: @CathyMyersWI. Just click and then click the Follow button.

What App do you use on your phone to follow Twitter? Most apps have the ability to click on a profile name (the @whatever) and then see the person’s profile. Once there, there is usually a Follow button or link. I use Tweetcaster for Android and it is pretty easy to follow – and unfollow – someone.

Thanks, Jan! I got the Apple guy to install Chrome on my phone so I could access political Twitter. Safari refuses to let me change or switch from one Twitter account to another. (BTW, although the Mac is largely virus-free, it has the worst software I’ve ever seen, nothing like as easy or as comprehensive as Microsoft Office.)

Emma is at 929,000+ now, by the way. I know that some of them are people following her to post mean replies to her (or reporters) but the bulk of them are people who clicked in solidarity. In her case, follows are like votes for common sense gun reform. By the way, she bypassed Cruella D’Loesch yesterday.

Princesspat, we have a Chinese moving company lined up, as it’s cheaper than the others. Our realtor, contractor, and house photographer are also Chinese. (Our Chinese daughter-in-law has helped us with this.) We had to text pictures of the big pieces to the owner of the moving company so he could decide whether or not he wanted to take on the job!

The good news is that the buyers have agreed to take a lot of our furniture, which means we’ll only have to sell a few pieces. That’s a load off our minds. I’m not sure how we’re going to adjust to living in such a tiny space. One resident told me a couple of years ago that she cried for six months after moving to Ashby Ponds: downsizing from a 12-room house to an apartment (a quite spacious apartment, by the way) really was traumatic for her.

I can imagine myself living in a smaller space and I am fine with it. In between moving from the Milwaukee area to Madison, we had to live in a two-bedroom apartment for two and a half months while the house was being finished and it was not terrible. I think the thing I missed the most was a comfortable homey kitchen because all my life, the kitchen has been the hub. So when I make my downsize move, I will look closely at that aspect. A nice place to sip coffee and read the “paper” and look out at nature will be high on the list.

Getting started on cooking, I have 2 dishes to make. I roasted walnuts & let the berries thaw yesterday, got quinoa in the rice cooker & I’ll do some other prep stuff before church. Yesterday was warm, today back to chilly…..by which I mean 50s.

What may be different about the Parkland students is their almost instantaneous mobilization and the power of social media, where their passionate speeches have gone viral, experts said.

“It’s this perfect storm of young people whose authority to speak cannot be denied because their friends were just murdered, have control of social media, the ability to speak to mass media, have celebrity support and organizational infrastructure,” said Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of civic media at MIT.

Democrats know that they have the political platform that will appeal to these young people:

“We need to embrace this movement,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau. “It very well may be that the solution to gun violence in this country is a generational solution instead of a partisan one. This might be the generation that finally breaks through on this issue.”

Republicans only hope is that the movement dies off as kids get bored with it. I think they are deluding themselves and setting themselves up for a powerful rebuke at the polls as their “plan” is to mock and insult the students. Please proceed, GOP.

Good morning, 41 and cloudy in Bellingham, so my migrating primroses can come out of the garage. They are a bit bedraggled but should recover.

I have a busy day ahead as we’re going to our daughter’s house in Edmonds for an early dinner, then to a concert in Seattle tonight. Our son will be doing the driving so all we need to do is relax and have fun!

Mid 40s right now heading for 60 – clear and sunny – at 5.5 KWHs I already have more electricity generated today than the last two combined. The m-t-d is 161 at the moment and it’s quite possible it will be over 165 by sundown with 3 more days left in the month.

So very happy the Parkland kids are doing what they’re doing. I really think we can get an assault weapons ban and maybe even background checks and registration w/ no guns to domestic abusers. These kids are mobilizing their entire generation. If we support them in this, they will support us in other progressive areas – already are considering that tweet about Puerto Rico – and they will not only vote now, they will keep voting. They will add the majority of their generation as a very active component of the Dem base. We are in darkness now, but the Future is looking bright.

Gonna tour the internets a bit, read Denise’s diary & the DK Village, then get back to house stuff. Or rather outside stuff since it’s relatively warm and not raining. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

It is 25 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 50. Sunny skies are in the forecast. Holy moley, time to break out the shorts!!

Yesterday’s CNN poll is more bad news for Republicans. People under 40 despise the Republicans and people under 30 really really despise them. If we can get them to take that disgust to the polls, we don’t have to wait for the gerrymanders to be tossed out by the courts – the districts they live in with their Republican parents will trend blue. That poll also showed that the time is ripe for gun reform. The NRA really stepped in it by making this fight about them and having the face of the NRA be the Queen of Death Porn, Dana Loesch. Her dystopian ads for Republicans in the last election are being replayed and the ungodly sum of money given to Trump ties them to his disapproval ratings. NRA=Trump and you can’t wash that stink off. Her latest claim, that the NRA is not a lobbyist, is belied by the $350 million fees paid to them by the gun manufacturers each year. Corporate America knows that they are not giving discounts to sportsmen but propping up a PAC that the majority of Americans disapprove of and they headed to the doors.

Today the Supreme Court hears the Janus case. This is the replacement case for the one that they deadlocked on in 2016 after Scalia died. It will take 5 reliable Republicans to put the final nail in the coffin of public sector unions and now they have them. Nice job, berners! Your peevishness will turn America into a right-to-work country and destroy one of the engines of GOTV for Democrats. Curse you!

And speaking of berners, nice job in California Democratic Party. Old women are to be put out to pasture but old men are supposed to lead us? Meh.

Three days left in February and I have to get to it. See all y’alls later!

The damage done by the Tea Party governors who took power in 2011 and essentially dismantled Good Government will take years to repair – and, sadly, much of it is permanent. Thank goodness a lot of them are term limited (Rick Snyder, John Kasich, Rick Scott, Paul LePage) so we don’t have to depend on the voters to kick the bums out like we do in Wisconsin. When that batch of governors was re-elected in 2014, I had to do a major reset; I was convinced that the people would reject second terms for those guys who were so unpopular and did so much damage to their states. Nope! They were all given another 4 years to extend the damage – only the governor of Pennsylvania lost.

Two more states with term limited governors, and which are blue states after 2016, are New Mexico and Nevada. Time to clean the rest of the stable out.

Politico had a list of the governors races in 2018 with our chances. There is really no reason that Illinois should have a Republican governor and Rauner should be replaced. The head scratcher is Maryland which should have a Democratic governor but where Larry Hogan is polling well for re-election. We have to defend an open seat in Connecticut and the governor of Alaska, who is an independent and not completely awful, is running behind the Republican. People are hoping to convince former Democratic Senator Mark Begich to get in the race.

The path to protecting against new 2020 gerrymandering damage runs directly through statehouses and groups like Eric Holder’s are going to be big players.

Good Moon Day morning, Meese! The streets are drying off after an overnight rain but the sky is still cloudy. I’m not sure what to expect today in NoVa, but the current temp. is 48 F., going up to 51 F.

We had family here for a great deal of yesterday, so I missed Denise’s diary. Hope to read it later this morning.

Really dense fog, especially in my neighborhood — couldn’t even see a block; it’s a little better downtown. Happy Monday. Oatmeal, tea. Slept really badly last night, even for me. Of course I was finally sleeping when the alarm went off. Playing Discotheque in my head to keep myself awake.

36 wind chill 32 heading for lower 60s and sunny today. Sunny yesterday too – generated 14.88 KWHs for the day, high for the month and year so far, and the m-t-d reached 170 yesterday. If today is like yesterday… :)

The kids really are giving us old hippies without the dirty effen hope and a recharge. The Parkland kids are old enough, young enough, and social media savvy enough – they were starting to pay attention when Obama was elected, they really are the ones who are picking up that torch. They really are being the change they want to see. Mari Copeny – Little Miss Flint – was too young when the Flint Water crisis got public attention but she’s getting older year by year. I think/hope she’ll start getting more coverage, get a cohort working with her, and safe water will be what comes after the assault weapons ban. It does this old marcher-teacher-gov’t official’s heart good to see.

Something weird with my computer. Last night all around the edges/frame of the screen was black – I couldn’t see the scroll bar or the tabs up top. After a couple of hard reboots, I got my screen back to “normal” but it was flickering badly. It was still flickering a bit when I logged on about 20 minutes ago and started dealing with my emails. It’s not quite as bad now but it definitely hurts my eyes – and makes me nervous. This laptop is less than 2 years old (I think/I hope I still have the paperwork somewhere) and it shouldn’t be giving me problems. Unless of course it’s simply not designed to be used 8 or more hours a day. sigh.

Gonna do a quick tour of the internets then I have some phone calls to make. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}

I think that any computer should be capable of being used 8 hours a day, that is not stress. New Dell computers typically come with a 3 year warranty but if you got your laptop through a special program, it might be less. Check the paper work and make sure that if you do have a warranty you contact them regarding the problem. If nothing else, it documents the issue and starts a log so that the next time you call they will treat it more urgently. It could be a flaky driver or it could be a video card failing. If you do have a warranty, you should get on live chat with them and see what they say.

I got it from the University computer store – just got off the phone with them. They said bring it in. Even if I don’t have the paperwork (which I’m not finding right now) they can look it up via the serial number. Not sure I can get to it today but definitely either today or tomorrow. Thank you. {{{HUGS}}}

I’ll stash this info somewhere for safe keeping, but the flickering stopped & the techies at the Computer Store said not to bring it in as they can’t diagnosis what’s wrong if it isn’t doing it. Sounds like auto repair guys. sigh. Thanks & moar {{{HUGS}}}

Good morning, Moosekind. 28 now with a high of 46 today; I’d like to think that we’re turning the corner of winter, but a) March is March, and b) Michigan is Michigan. I’ll enjoy the [relatively] balmy days while I can. This winter, with its perpetual freeze-thaw cycles, has made our bad roads worse. I don’t do bumper stickers, but I saw one that said, “I’m not driving drunk; I’m avoiding potholes”, and I’m tempted to get one. In the meantime, our ALEC bought-and-paid-for legislature spent part of last week dealing with Michigan’s most urgent problem. Funds for road repairs? Hell, no…they voted to make English the official language of Michigan.

And now a random question for Jan: I’m thinking of heading to Mauston sometime in the fall. I have a genealogical roadblock that looks like it can only be solved by heading there to do some local research. If I wanted to make a mini-vacation out of it, beyond my research time, would I find much to do in that area? I know I can always drive up the road to Madison, but if I wanted to stay in/close to Juneau County, do you think I’d find enough to explore?

Not really much in Mauston that I am aware of but I am not a lifelong Wisconsinite. I know that when I drive through Juneau County, I try to do it very quickly because the people there are a bit tetched – having elected and re-elected Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and his idiot brother Jeff who was Speaker of the Assembly until he retired a few years ago after his failed run for U.S. Senate.

If you want to make it a mini-vacation, you should visit Madison. Let me know when you are in the area and maybe we can have lunch!

I know that when I drive through Juneau County, I try to do it very quickly because the people there are a bit tetched

LOL, I’d like to think that’s why my 2x great grandmother skedaddled out of there, but I’m sure it’s due to something far more mundane!

Every other year, my college roommate, “the girl across the hall,” and I take a short vacation together. I may suggest Madison as our destination this year, and either go early or stay longer so I can do my research in Mauston. I haven’t been to Madison since my senior year in high school when I was considering U-W, and while I decided U-W was too big for me, I did love Madison. I’m sure we could find plenty to do, particularly since as we get older, our idea of a wild time is museums during the day, and chilling with a bottle of wine in the evening. Who could resist the siren call of the National Mustard Museum?!

This is a BHD – SCOTUS will NOT step in front of the DACA cases being decided at the appellate level, at least for now. That means the stay will remain in place at least until they think it is not moving expeditiously.

#SCOTUS denies review in DACA termination challenge, without prejudice (i.e., can come back to justices). Court stresses: "It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case."

It is 37 degrees in Madison with an expected daytime high of 55. Sunny skies most of the day and then a chance of rain tonight. We will be getting cold again and there is a chance for snow on Thursday thus meeting our obligation for March to come “in like a lion”. We then expect March to meet its obligation to us and go out like a lamb!

Good news out of Wisconsin yesterday: Eric Holder’s organization filed a lawsuit against Scott Walker for refusing to call special elections in two open seats – leaving the people in one Senate district and one Assembly district without representation for over a year. Walker says it is not worth holding an election because the legislature adjourns on May 1st. But of course representation is not just “voting for Scott Walker’s bills” it is constituent services. While the seats are empty, the former legislators’ staffs are handling that function, under the direction of who, one wonders. Walker could have had the elections held February 20th and April 3rd when there were already statewide elections planned and the only extra cost would have been processing the filing papers. No, instead he will be spending state money to defend his indefensible act. I hope that there is a remedy and that those people have a chance to elect a representative this year before the legislature meets again in the fall.

I am going to watch with interest what is unfolding in Georgia. The Lt. Governor, who is also a front runner in the Republican primary to replace term-limited Governor Nathan Deal, tweeted out a blackmail threat to Delta Airlines that if they don’t change their mind about not offering discounts to NRA members, they will lose $50 million in tax breaks. Then the Georgia Senate, doing his bidding, voted down the tax cuts that the Assembly had passed. Holy moley! The NRA is so powerful that they control the economy in a sovereign state – putting millions of jobs on the line and threatening one of the state’s largest employers. It is past time to stop the NRA. The good news is that we have a good Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, and this could quickly become a campaign issue that favors her.

Good Tiu’s Day morning, Meese, and a beautiful morning it is too, after the cloudy, misty, drizzly weather we’ve had for four consecutive days. Right now there’s a clear blue sky in NoVa, with white frost lying thick on the grass and on the top of Hubby’s red pickup truck. The sunshine pouring down should take care of the frost on my car by the time I need to leave for the gym. Currently it’s 28 F., going up to 55 F. I see that daffodils have already popped out in the front yard of my neighbor across the street. The grass is greening and from my bay window I can see buds on the purple lilac. Whoo-hoo—welcome, early spring!

Had the night from hell—bed at 11, up at 3, could not go back to sleep after that, so will need a nap after lunch. Darling Niece has said she’ll come over tomorrow to help with the packing, so I hope nothing will prevent her.

Have been invited by a politically minded friend to accompany her on the march against guns on March 24, but (1) we’ll still be unpacking and cursing then, and (2) I’m physically unable to go on a long march. I ought to write a book called, “Pee House of the August Moon,” because I spend so much time in those establishments. Sorry to be so frank this early in the morning.

The delicious smell of coffee is wafting up the stairs, so I’m going down to breakfast. In two and a half weeks there won’t be any more stairs. I’ll miss going “down” to breakfast and “up” to bed, although I know there are people (like my daughter) who regard anything other than one-level houses with horror.

We have not had any flowers blooming yet but the red-winged blackbirds are back and we heard the cranes yesterday. It seems a bit early for the cranes but the red-winged blackbirds are always the first birds to arrive in the spring so that means that spring is definitely on its way! I took a walk with my daughter yesterday and pointed out that no matter how cold and dark and snowy it is, the cycle of the earth will bring us back to spring. I hope that is true! I just read that the North Pole is melting. :(

Comment navigation

Featured Posts

I’m leaving Friday morning for our long holiday weekend with The Kiddo and SIL, and that’s where my head is at (and has been for at least a week). So instead of doing a deep dive into some obscure historical figure or event, I thought I’d stick with history…but let the community do the work!…

While The Gathering was happening in Burlington, VT this past weekend, another event was happening that slid under the radar of most reporters and tweeters. RootsCamp 2018 is the [now] biennial, progressive unconference held by Re:Power (which is the rebranded, revised Wellstone Action; some of the story is here: Wellstone is now re:power). Unlike some…

Jack, left, and Don, right in 1939 Tradition says that anyone born within the sound of Bow bells is a true Cockney. My husband Don certainly qualifies on that score: he was born at Lambeth, not far from the church of St. Mary-le-Bow. “Grandpa is walking, talking history,” I tell our grandchildren. Recently he shared…

So, first thing, there is another $100 match Wednesday, and another chance to win South By Southwest wristbands if I raise $250. If I get to $250, and if I win the wristbands (2 big ifs) I’ll put the names of all of today’s donors in my own drawing & give someone the other wristband,…

So we’ve all been hearing the awfulness brought out by the Kavanaugh hearings. Some of us are reliving/remembering some pretty awful things. I can’t deal with any more horror/disgust/sadness. I can’t go back and re-do the past, make those things not happen. What I can do is try to make now better. I’m writing a…